WATCH: Canadian women's hockey players return home as heroes

With 20 minutes remaining in the final game against the United states, Canada's olympic women's hockey team was trailing 2-0.

Less than an hour later, Canada won its fourth consecutive gold medal in women's hockey.

So it's amidst tears, smiles and the screams of passionate fans that the women of Canada's gold-medal hockey team made a triumphant return to home soil.

Star defenseman Catherine Ward said it's her team's will to win is what drove them to keep playing even if a win seemed distant.

"This is what you've wanted for so long. Four years for that moment, and I think we worked hard all year," the first-time olympian said upon her arrival in Montreal.

As a team, we've had lows and we've had times when people wanted to give up, [and] I think that's what made that game so special."

Hardest tournament of all

Team captain Caroline Ouellette already had three gold medals to her count before leaving for Sochi.

Yet despite all her experience, she says this tournament was the hardest of all.

"I'd say this medal was much harder to win [than the previous three]. We had such an incredibly difficult journey up to the Games," the captain said.

"We changed our head coach during the season, we had a lot of injuries to some of our best players ... At one point, we had three of our centres out of the lineup."

The change in coaching may have been an adjustment, but she also quoted the arrival of new head coach Kevin Dineen as a turning point for the team. Simply put, the former coach of the Florida Panthers gave his team a second wind.

"Kevin Dineen brought new energy and an incredible level of knowledge to the team. We believed we could win the Olympics from that moment on," Ouellette concluded.

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